Pen Tool
Using Pen Tool
I know many of us have had a hard time trying to use pen tool and fail. It took me a computer graphics class in high school to learn it. A fair amount of knowledge grasp in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator is needed to learn this tool. I have realized that I’ve used the pen tool for two years now and I think it’s time to pass on my knowledge to all of you. :)
Pen tool helps you to create pictures with clean, crisp lines, for example, I used Icis’ drawing and with a pen tool, I cleaned up the lines, http://www.mediaminer.org/fanart/view.php/184768 [Mandy] Then, eventually, you will be able to draw with just pen tool to create images. This image was done with only pen tool with no previous sketches made, http://www.mediaminer.org/fanart/view.php/182822 [~Juggy~].
So, ready to learn how to use the pen tool?
First, you will need to use a drawing or a picture to start out with. I’ll use this picture:
Make sure that you have three of the following layers because pen tool will not work on a single layer. You will need the drawing/picture, a layer filled with white, and a transparent, empty layer, which is where you will be inking your lines.
The white background layer is so that you will be able to tell what you’re doing. Now, click on the white background layer’s eye so that the layer will be invisible and see the drawing/picture again.
The top circled area is where you click on to make the white background invisible and the bottom circled area is where you click on to make a new pen layer, as I will call it.
After you click on the pen tool in the bottom circled area, you will need to make sure you have the top circled area with the arrow pointing to it, clicked on, with the pen inside the square instead of the square-blank one.
To start using the pen tool, just click on the ideal beginning of the line as indicated by the arrow. I’ve started at the point where her jaw starts.
The first part, you will make a second point just after something curves but before something becomes straight or curves another area. But before you let go of the point, drag to where the arrow is pointing. To know which way to drag, I do it by watching which way the curve is going. Often times, it will not curve to the way you want. Do not worry about that right now. I’ll show you how to fix the curves later. See the below picture, it did not turn out the way I want it, even if I try to keep it to the lines.
To fix that, you can put the white background visible or on fade (opacity 62% [random number for me]) to a point where you can see well enough of both the pen tool lines and the drawing itself.
Now, to fix the lines, hold down the pen tool to bring up the submenu as shown above.
First, click on any part of the line segment you wish to edit and you will see the points appear. Then take one of the points you want to edit and move it up/down/left/right/etc to move the line to where you want the line to be at. Once you’ve done that and you want to edit another point, click on the line segment you want to edit and repeat the steps.
Chances are, you will want to move an anchor, the points which are within the pen tool lines, elsewhere. To do that, just grab the tool in the tool menu. If it’s totally in black, hold it down to bring up the submenu and click on that. Then click on the anchor and drag it to your liking.
Once you have edited the lines to your liking, we will get to the next step, getting the black, crisp lines. Keep in mind, this may differ in different versions of Adobe Photoshop but should be roughly the same.
First, click on the brush button, make sure the brush size is the size of the line you want and is black. (or any other color of lines you want). Also, make sure you have clicked on the lines layer. Then you have two ways about stroking the lines. Either click on the red-squared area one which strokes right away. Or if you want to do something niftier, then right click on the path layer you want to stroke.
To do that, such as lines where things begin with thin lines and really thick, the size of your brush and gets thinner again, like the line above.
To achieve the thin to thick to thin lines, the box is needed to be checked in stimulate pressure.
When you are done stroking the line to your liking, you just click on the new Pen tool layer to do a different line.
Then you just have to repeat the steps for all the other lines in the drawing
Additional things:
To be truly efficient, you will need to have a lot of patience when learning to use the tool and especially experiment with all of the buttons in the pen tool menus.
Black arrow: it is handy to know, if you want to move, say, an eye. You grab the black arrow and drag the line to the other side and stroke the line. After that, you take lasso tool and surround the area, then go to edit, Transform>Horizontal or however you want to flip in which direction. Free transform, if you’re feeling more devious. Or you can take the easier way: surround the area already stroked with lasso tool, copy and paste, move it with the move-arrow to a different spot and flip it with the Edit>transform>horizontal.
There are other things in the pen tool menu as you have noticed. All you have to do is play around with them. And that’s that. =D
Finished result (line):
After you do the line art, keep the line layer at the top when you color. You don’t have to worry going over the lines if you use lasso tool to stay within the lines. Like below, look at where the line layer is and the color layers.
After that, you can go crazy with shading/highlighting. :)
Finished result:
Any questions, you can ask in here and I will answer. :)
I know many of us have had a hard time trying to use pen tool and fail. It took me a computer graphics class in high school to learn it. A fair amount of knowledge grasp in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator is needed to learn this tool. I have realized that I’ve used the pen tool for two years now and I think it’s time to pass on my knowledge to all of you. :)
Pen tool helps you to create pictures with clean, crisp lines, for example, I used Icis’ drawing and with a pen tool, I cleaned up the lines, http://www.mediaminer.org/fanart/view.php/184768 [Mandy] Then, eventually, you will be able to draw with just pen tool to create images. This image was done with only pen tool with no previous sketches made, http://www.mediaminer.org/fanart/view.php/182822 [~Juggy~].
So, ready to learn how to use the pen tool?
First, you will need to use a drawing or a picture to start out with. I’ll use this picture:
Make sure that you have three of the following layers because pen tool will not work on a single layer. You will need the drawing/picture, a layer filled with white, and a transparent, empty layer, which is where you will be inking your lines.
The white background layer is so that you will be able to tell what you’re doing. Now, click on the white background layer’s eye so that the layer will be invisible and see the drawing/picture again.
The top circled area is where you click on to make the white background invisible and the bottom circled area is where you click on to make a new pen layer, as I will call it.
After you click on the pen tool in the bottom circled area, you will need to make sure you have the top circled area with the arrow pointing to it, clicked on, with the pen inside the square instead of the square-blank one.
To start using the pen tool, just click on the ideal beginning of the line as indicated by the arrow. I’ve started at the point where her jaw starts.
The first part, you will make a second point just after something curves but before something becomes straight or curves another area. But before you let go of the point, drag to where the arrow is pointing. To know which way to drag, I do it by watching which way the curve is going. Often times, it will not curve to the way you want. Do not worry about that right now. I’ll show you how to fix the curves later. See the below picture, it did not turn out the way I want it, even if I try to keep it to the lines.
To fix that, you can put the white background visible or on fade (opacity 62% [random number for me]) to a point where you can see well enough of both the pen tool lines and the drawing itself.
Now, to fix the lines, hold down the pen tool to bring up the submenu as shown above.
First, click on any part of the line segment you wish to edit and you will see the points appear. Then take one of the points you want to edit and move it up/down/left/right/etc to move the line to where you want the line to be at. Once you’ve done that and you want to edit another point, click on the line segment you want to edit and repeat the steps.
Chances are, you will want to move an anchor, the points which are within the pen tool lines, elsewhere. To do that, just grab the tool in the tool menu. If it’s totally in black, hold it down to bring up the submenu and click on that. Then click on the anchor and drag it to your liking.
Once you have edited the lines to your liking, we will get to the next step, getting the black, crisp lines. Keep in mind, this may differ in different versions of Adobe Photoshop but should be roughly the same.
First, click on the brush button, make sure the brush size is the size of the line you want and is black. (or any other color of lines you want). Also, make sure you have clicked on the lines layer. Then you have two ways about stroking the lines. Either click on the red-squared area one which strokes right away. Or if you want to do something niftier, then right click on the path layer you want to stroke.
To do that, such as lines where things begin with thin lines and really thick, the size of your brush and gets thinner again, like the line above.
To achieve the thin to thick to thin lines, the box is needed to be checked in stimulate pressure.
When you are done stroking the line to your liking, you just click on the new Pen tool layer to do a different line.
Then you just have to repeat the steps for all the other lines in the drawing
Additional things:
To be truly efficient, you will need to have a lot of patience when learning to use the tool and especially experiment with all of the buttons in the pen tool menus.
Black arrow: it is handy to know, if you want to move, say, an eye. You grab the black arrow and drag the line to the other side and stroke the line. After that, you take lasso tool and surround the area, then go to edit, Transform>Horizontal or however you want to flip in which direction. Free transform, if you’re feeling more devious. Or you can take the easier way: surround the area already stroked with lasso tool, copy and paste, move it with the move-arrow to a different spot and flip it with the Edit>transform>horizontal.
There are other things in the pen tool menu as you have noticed. All you have to do is play around with them. And that’s that. =D
Finished result (line):
After you do the line art, keep the line layer at the top when you color. You don’t have to worry going over the lines if you use lasso tool to stay within the lines. Like below, look at where the line layer is and the color layers.
After that, you can go crazy with shading/highlighting. :)
Finished result:
Any questions, you can ask in here and I will answer. :)